


i’ve loved you for a thousand years (i'll love you for a thousand more)

by astarisms



Category: The Daevabad Trilogy - S. A. Chakraborty
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Happily Ever After, Second Chance Romance, You Have Been Warned, also i like to make dara cry so there's a lot of that, and close to my heart, and im not editing them so apologies in advance for discrepancies, bc thats what i CRAVE, but for now we're skipping straight to the good domestic stuff, but future additions likely will not be, just bc i have them all right now and can do that, potential spoilers for the first two books, these are very sappy and soft and self indulgent, these were never intended to be posted or part of a series, these will start out in chronological order, this is just gonna be a series of oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21863212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astarisms/pseuds/astarisms
Summary: after all is said and done, they go their separate ways. but they are djinn with all the time in the world, and their love is too strong to keep them apart forever. post-eog.
Relationships: Darayavahoush e-Afshin/Nahri
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	1. i will not let anything take away what’s standing in front of me

Nahri knows long before most expectant mothers that she is pregnant. She feels the change in her body as it begins to accommodate new life as acutely as if she’d pricked her finger. It’s the strangest experience, to be so attuned to the development of a second life within her. 

It’s one that fills her simultaneously with warmth and dread. 

In all her dreams for herself, becoming a mother had never been one, not for lack of want of children but because it had seemed out of reach growing up on the streets of Cairo and with the tumultuous circumstances surrounding her marriage to Muntadhir. 

It had never been a realistic dream, and frankly, its importance had paled in comparison to her other ones, so she had kept it carefully out of bounds. 

Now that it’s happening, however, she’s not quite sure what to do with her wild tangle of emotions. 

She has accomplished so much more than she had ever dreamed of. As Daevabad’s chief healer, the director of the hospital, the master that apprentices trained under, and one of the Daeva representatives on Daevabad’s council, the once far fetched desire to study in Istanbul seems vastly underwhelming compared to her reality. 

And yet motherhood seems a far more daunting task than all of her professions combined.

She has never pictured herself as a mother, partly because she has always had bigger aspirations for herself and partly because she has little idea what constitutes a good one. 

Or a present one.

While taking life’s punches in stride has always been a specialty of hers, it’s different when the punch is another life. One she is irrevocably responsible for.

And though it shouldn’t come as a surprise — her and Dara hadn’t been trying but they also hadn’t  _ not _ been trying — the realization that she  _ is _ still manages to take her breath away. 

She lays a hand over her stomach, though the life is still far too fragile and new for her to feel anything, and exhales. 

_ Another adventure _ , she thinks. 

x

She doesn’t tell Dara right away, even though she’s near bursting at the seams with the news. She knows how much this will mean to him, and even though she still hasn’t sorted through all of her own emotions yet, she can’t deny that she’s excited to share this with him.

Nahri is well aware that after everything, Dara’s dreams are much more humble than her own. She knows that if she wished it, he would be more than willing to content himself with only her and the house on the outskirts of the city he’s building for them, where he can keep a stable. 

She is excited to give him this, this little life growing inside of her that’s equal parts him and her, so that maybe both of their dreams can be complete. 

It’s precisely for this reason that she waits. She knows enough of pregnancy to know that nothing is for certain, especially not so early, and she doesn’t want to give him false hope.

She locks her jaw against the words for one month, and tries to pick through her jumbled thoughts of motherhood.

She presses her lips together for another month, and resigns herself to the fact that she will probably be equal parts fear and tenderness indefinitely.

Near the end of the second month, she sits in her office in the hospital, tuning out the awareness she has for all her patients’ and apprentices’ bodies. 

One manages to slip past the careful wall she puts up to separate herself from her abilities, if only temporarily, but she pauses. This heartbeat is different.

It’s fainter than most, fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. It’s also not coming from around her, almost like it’s coming from  _ within _ …

“Oh,” she gasps quietly, looking down at her stomach, her own heart stuttering in her chest. 

In the privacy of her office, Nahri laughs. 

x

She has had months to craft the perfect way to tell him, but when she sees him in the courtyard, waiting to walk her home, all of her carefully worded plans dissipate. 

He looks up and smiles at her. It’s a rare day when his demons aren’t snared in his eyes, and seeing that today is one of them, the admission almost comes tumbling from her lips before she realizes they’re not alone. There are others idling in the courtyard, sitting along the edges of the fountain, weaving slowly through the breezeway. 

She smiles at her patients, nodding to them as she makes her way to his side. He respectfully clasps his hands behind his back and walks alongside her, and Nahri can’t tell if she’s annoyed or endeared by how old fashioned he still is. 

They’ve been married for longer than her and Muntadhir had been, and yet Dara still insists on propriety, at least in most instances. 

He asks her about her day and inquires after her patients. For someone who rarely ventures beyond the courtyard and her office, she thinks he might know more about the goings on in her hospital than most of her apprentices, just from listening to her. 

She asks after him as they meander through the streets of the Geziri quarter and through the Grand Bazaar, though the pace is making her restless, eager to be home and deliver the news.

Her Afshin, ever diligent, stops mid sentence to appraise her. 

“Is something wrong?” he asks, and Nahri forces herself to slow down. She has waited two months, but the thought that the reveal was minutes away has her overeager. 

“No,” she says calmly, even as she spots their home in the distance and feels her heartbeat pick up in anticipation. “Just the opposite, in fact.”

“Oh?” He sounds curious but she resists glancing at him because she feels the words rising inside of her, trying to escape before she wants them to. 

She hums in affirmation, her eye trained on their door growing closer with every step. 

“Is this news you feel like sharing,” he inquires lightly, “or shall I start guessing?”

“That might be fun.”

“Is it that Bahram has finally passed his stones?” he guesses, and she can’t help the snort that escapes her. She feels only mildly guilty for it. She knows that diamonds were no easy stone to pass, but Bahram is so insufferable and demanding in his complaints, she might have guessed he had swallowed them himself just so he might have an excuse. 

“If only the Creator would be so gracious,” she teases. She meets his amused gaze, and glances away just as swiftly as they reach their door. 

“Hmm… could it be—“

“Dara.” He closes his mouth immediately as they slip inside and Nahri shuts the door behind them. “I’ve been keeping something from you.”

He raises a brow, looking at her expectantly. 

She should wait until they get comfortable, until they’re doing something other than standing in the doorway, but Nahri is tired of waiting.

She takes a deep breath.

“I’m pregnant.”

She watches him closely for his reaction, but it’s like he’s frozen in place, staring at her. She searches his expression for something, any indication of how he’s feeling, but there’s nothing for a long moment.

Then he blinks.

“I— you…” His eyes drop to her stomach, and then dart back up to her face. “Come again?” he asks weakly, and all the humor he’d previously possessed has disappeared.

“I’m pregnant, Dara,” she says, softer this time. She steps closer to him and takes his hand, pressing it against her stomach and holding it there, even though she knows the fetus is still much too small for there to be any indication of its presence that he can see or feel. “We’re going to have a baby.” 

He’s looking at her stomach again, where their hands are laid over it, but when he meets her eyes again, his are damp. She smiles and reaches up to catch a tear as it falls, despite his efforts to blink them away.

“Truly?” His voice has dropped to a whisper, as if he’s afraid anything louder might shatter this moment. Nahri smiles and nods, feeling tears prick at her own eyes.

“I can hear the heartbeat. Feel it. I wanted to wait to tell you until I was sure…” she trails off, because the look of wonder that crosses Dara’s face steals her breath. She hadn’t been sure whether or not he’d be upset at her keeping this from him for so long, but seeing him now washes all those fears away. 

“There’s a heartbeat?” he asks, fingers flexing under hers, as if he could feel it himself if he tries hard enough. Nahri nods again, the weight of his reaction stealing her words. 

She had known, always known, that he wanted children. She had known that not being able to have them, to give them to her, had devastated him, once upon a time. But nothing could have prepared her for this, for the way his hand trembled underneath hers, the way his breath caught, the disbelief and joy blurred beneath the tears clinging to his lashes. 

To her, children had never been the miracle people claimed they were. She had figured out the mechanics of growing another life and she had been a firsthand witness to the devastation it wrought on those around her.

But now, she thinks she might understand the sentiment. To Dara, this  _ was _ a miracle. A dream that had been stolen from him so long ago, only for it to finally be in reach.

Her heart stutters in her chest and for the first time she doesn’t feel any of that familiar fear, the uncertainty that comes with parenthood. How could she, when her partner is so eager and ready? 

They had started this adventure together that night in a Cairo graveyard, and went their separate ways for years, growing individually until they were ready to fit together again. And she’d be lying to herself if she said she hasn’t been wanting another one with him. 

Dara sinks to his knees in front of her, and Nahri smiles so wide her cheeks hurt when he kisses her knuckles, then her stomach underneath. He’s murmuring something into the fabric of her gown that she doesn’t catch until she leans down to brush her lips over his hair, thrilled to be sharing this moment with him.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, reverently. “Thank you.”


	2. one step closer

“Dara,” Nahri whispers, stroking the knuckles of his hand where it’s wrapped around her waist and resting on her stomach. He hums, and she feels the vibrations of it against her back, on her neck. She shivers. “Are you asleep?”

“Not anymore,” he murmurs, though his voice is thick with it. She feels his lips touch her shoulder, and fights the urge to melt back against his chest, instead turning in his arms to face him.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” she starts, but he is already shaking his head, pressing his forehead against hers. 

“You know there is no need for that.” She relaxes and wraps her arms around his neck, toying absently with the loose strands of his hair.

“What is it you need?” he asks after a minute of silence, his thumbs stroking the small of her back, pressing her close but mindful of her stomach. Nahri aches at the tenderness of his actions. 

_ He’s going to be such a good father _ , she thinks, closing her eyes briefly against the rush of emotion that consumes her.

“Nahri?”

“Nothing,” she says, struggling to hide how the word catches in her throat. “I was just thinking.” Dara’s hands still on her back briefly before resuming.

“A dangerous pastime for one with the occasional clever, criminal inclination,” he teases softly, and Nahri scoffs. 

“I am a respectable woman of society now,” she says, feigning offense, and Dara laughs quietly. 

“What occupies your mind this night, my lady?” 

Nahri hesitates. Dara waits, letting her gather her wits and her courage. 

“I was thinking about... well, about baby names.”

Dara’s breath catches, quickly and quietly enough that if she weren’t so attuned to him she might have missed it. 

“Oh?”

“Obviously the baby’s second name will be your father's, regardless,” Nahri says, hedging, and Dara tenses. 

“It needn’t be.”

Nahri pulls back a little to better meet his eyes. 

“It is how things are done.” She brings a hand forward to brush his hair back from his face. “And I like the name.”

She grazes her knuckles against his cheekbone. “Should the baby be a boy, I’d like to name him after the closest thing I had to one, as well.”

“Of course,” he says immediately, as if he’d never entertained the thought of another name. Nahri smiles, but there’s something missing in it, something that tells him she hasn’t said what she means to yet.

“And should the baby be a girl?” he prompts gently. Nahri drops her eyes, looking elsewhere, before she finds his again.

“Should the baby be a girl... I find I’m quite fond of the name ‘Tamima’.” 

Dara freezes. It is different this time. His hands still and his breath stops and there’s a rigidness to him that confirms her fears. 

“Oh, Dara, I didn’t mean—“ 

He suddenly catches her wrist, and she stops, caught by the rawness of his expression.

“Do you mean it?” he asks, unable to control the trembling in his voice or in his fingers. Nahri lets her shock soften.

“Of course. I would never joke about something so serious.”

The grip on her wrist isn’t constricting, so she carefully resumes her caresses, hoping to soothe away the broken shards that pierce his eyes. 

“She is important to you,” she says softly, choosing her words carefully. She knows this hurt in particular has never gotten easier, that his baby sister’s violent death was one of the many guilts he could not shake, even after so many years. “She should live on through you.”

“Through us,” she amends gently, turning her hand to grip his and place their entwined fingers over her stomach.

Dara’s breath shudders, and he blinks away the shattered pieces, his eyes filling with tears instead. 

“I...” He exhales, inhales, tries again. “I would like that very much.”

Nahri smiles, leaning up to press her lips to his cheek. 

“I was hoping you might,” she says, her relief palpable. Dara chokes on what might be a sob, or a laugh, and ducks his head to bury his face in her neck. 

“Of course I do you impossible, wonderful woman,” he says, his voice thick with the combination of old pain and new hope. Nahri feels her own tears prick her eyes. 

_ Damn pregnancy hormones _ , she thinks, as she presses her face into his shoulder, glad that she could bring some light to his many sorrows. 


	3. time stands still (beauty in all she is)

“Baba, look!”

Dara glances away from the mare’s dark, silky mane, the brush stilling with his hand as he turns to acknowledge the small, excited voice coming from the front of the stables.

Tamima, three years old and not quite at his hip, was proudly brandishing a bow constructed of sticks she’d collected from the yard. 

She grins toothily at him and suddenly he is transported back, so many years ago. 

_ Daru, look!  _ his sister had called, with the same affinity for the bow, always looking up to her bigger brother.

He feels weak, all of a sudden, at the parallel. That his daughter should be so like her namesake… 

Tears prick his eyes and Tamima’s own widen comically, as black as her mother’s — as black as his. She rushes to his side, her bow clattering to the floor, and hugs his legs fiercely.

“Baba?” she asks, blinking up at him, a pout settled into her tiny features. “Sad?”

He drops the brush and kneels down before her, taking her little face into his hands and smiling.

“No,” he assures her gently, “not sad, azizti, happy.”

Tamima reaches up to wipe his tears away, and he catches her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm.

“You remind me of my sister.”

“Sister?”

“Yes, your aunt. She is… away, but you are so much like her.”

Tamima’s eyes are still wide, but they are wiser than any three year old’s should be, filled with understanding.

“You miss?” 

“Yes,” he admits. “Very much. But—“ he stands abruptly, sweeping her up into his arms, and she squeals in delight, “you, habibti, you make everything better.” 

He tosses her into the air and relishes her laughter. He swears that it alone is enough to banish all his demons some days.

Settling her against his hip, he swoops down to grab her bow, holding it out to admire it properly.

“What craftsmanship!” he says dramatically, and Tamima giggles against his shoulder again, pushing her unruly curls out of her face before leaning forward dangerously far to grab it. He adjusts his grip on her to keep her from tumbling, handing it off to her. “The best bow I’ve ever seen.”

Her dark eyes are bright, and she smiles brilliantly, a smile that never fails to steal his breath. She has Nahri’s smile. He doesn’t think either of them will ever know the full extent to which the two of them saved what had been left of his soul. 

They are his world. 

“How about we go try it out?” he suggests, before that train of thought can consume him. Tamima nods enthusiastically, and he grins, pressing a kiss against her curls before carrying her out of the stables and into the open air surrounding their home in Zariaspa.

Dara breathes in the fresh air, and exhales. It wasn’t Daevabad, but he’d learned he didn’t need the city anymore. 

All he needed was Nahri and Tamima. Wherever he was, as long as they were with him, he was home. 


	4. the sun is waiting

Dara was a light sleeper.

Years of training and his role in the war had ensured that he was always alert, always ready to face the next threat, and it was a trait that had stuck with him through all his years.

Nahri was a relatively light sleeper as well, from her years as a street thief, but she liked to pretend otherwise. She pressed her face further into her pillow, and Dara laughed quietly to himself as he brushed her hair away from her face, leaving a kiss on her forehead in its place before he pulled himself out of bed and crossed the room to where Tamima slept.

He didn’t mind the late night awakenings, not when it allowed Nahri a few extra hours of sleep and him a few extra hours of quality time with their child.

With an abundance of care, he lifted her from her bed, and rested her against his chest, bouncing her gently as he exited the room, shutting the door softly behind him to spare Nahri the worst of the wailing.

“Hush now,” he murmured, pressing his lips to the top of the infant’s head as he found the bottle Nahri had prepared before bed, adjusting his hold on her to grip it in his palm and warm it. “Ya, habibti, you know nothing in this world could hurt you so long as I’m here.”

He barely noticed the slips of Arabic interspersed in his Divasti now. So many years by Nahri’s side had him picking up some of her more prominent speech patterns, and though he could have stopped himself from doing so early, the delight in her eyes the first time she’d heard him slip was reason enough for him to let his tongue behave how it wanted.

So much like her mother, their daughter also had a love for the human language. Too young to understand a word but enchanted by the way they sounded, she would often stare up at Nahri in wide-eyed awe when she would babble at her in the language she had been raised with. Half the time, it was an easy way to calm her.

Tonight was no different, and Dara smiled indulgently as she sniffled and wiggled in his arms, her cries quieting to whimpers and hiccups.

“No Divasti tonight, hm? What kind of Daeva are you, anyways?” he teased as he settled into a chair and laid her in the cradle of his arm, tapping the bottle against her mouth until she realized that it was food. “I’m not as good as your mother or Alizayd,” he continued in Arabic, leaning back and watching her closely to make sure she wasn’t drinking too quickly, “but it is good enough for you, yes? You will forgive your baba’s poor grammar?”

She blinked up at him guilelessly, those wide, dark eyes framed in dark lashes, her mother’s eyes. His throat closed up as his heart expanded in his chest, growing too big for his ribcage. 

He could not believe that this was his life. That this infant in his arms was equal parts him and Nahri, that she could look at him like this and know nothing of his life before her, nothing of the long, painful road he had walked to get to her.

How could he ever deserve her? Or Nahri?

No matter how much atonement he strived for, surely all of his sins were too great to allow him this moment? Surely his hands were too bloodied to be able to hold something as precious and innocent as his daughter? 

Tamima pushed the tip of the bottle out of her mouth, and Dara was pulled back into the present, out of his own head. He assessed how much was left, then set it beside him, pulling her upright until she was settled against his shoulder.

“You eat like your mother, you ravenous thing,” he joked past the lump in his throat, alternating between rubbing and patting her back. He heard the release of air by his ear, and eased her back down to feed her the rest.

She finished it quickly, and he propped her up again, repeating the motions. But she was wide awake now, and she bounced in his arms, her tiny hands beating at his shoulder and back. Dara didn’t have to turn around to know what she was seeing over his shoulder, through the window.

“They are sleeping, azizti,” he murmured, but he was already on his feet, pulling her blanket tighter around her and keeping her close against his chest as he crossed to the door and slipped outside. It was a clear night, cool and quiet, the landscape awash in moonlight. She bounced more enthusiastically now, and Dara couldn’t help his grin. 

Her love of horses was already apparent, and he couldn’t deny that he was thrilled she had inherited that from him. Daevas were born in the saddle. Nahri was the exception to that rule, though he had long since accepted that Nahri was the exception to almost every rule, but he was eager to share this simple joy with their daughter.

He pushed the stable doors open, conjuring a flame in his palm to light the dark interior. He lit the lanterns hanging from the walls, moving deeper into the barn, the scent of horses and hay soothing him, ridding the last of the dark thoughts from his mind. 

Tamima nearly leapt out of his arms in her excitement, cooing at the few horses who had woken at their presence, huffing tiredly at the disruption. Dara walked up to the closest one, laying his free hand against her muzzle. She snorted, nudging her nose further into his hand, before pushing it away in favor of observing the baby in his arms curiously. 

Little fingers catching on the short fur, Tamima pitched forward until her forehead rested against the mare’s muzzle, delighted. Dara laughed again, loud enough to wake the other horses, as the mare blew more air out, catching the infant’s belly. 

“Alright, you’ve proven yourself,” he said, watching the interaction with equal parts tenderness and amusement. “Despite your language preferences there’s no denying you’re Daeva now.”

He pulled her away after a minute, mindful of her scrabbling hands.

“One day soon we’ll have you on the back of one of them.” He retrieved a treat from the bag hanging on the wall, just out of reach from the stable door, and lifted it for the mare to take before soothing a hand down her mane. Tamima watched with her dark, dark eyes, enraptured by the horse and content now that she’d been fed and indulged. 

Dara glanced down at her, with her downy curls and watchful eyes and smooth skin. He remembered how unlikely his dreams had seemed all those years ago. He didn’t deserve them. Not Nahri, nor Tamima, nor this life in the countryside with them and his horses.

But they were his. By the grace of the fires, they were his and he would cherish them until his last true breath.

He made one last round through the barn, assuring the horses that all was well and letting Tamima play with a few of the more mild-mannered ones, before he led her back outside, closing and barring the stable doors and meandering back towards the house. Tamima yawned.

“It’s bedtime now, hm? The sun is waiting for you, little flame.”


End file.
